


strings

by cptsdstars



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, Gen, let’s explore what’s going on in james’ head, mmmmmmmm, spoilers???, tw puppets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27994692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsdstars/pseuds/cptsdstars
Summary: You don’t know about the Barlow woman.It’s true.The longer John watches her interact with the captain he’s funneled deeper into the mystery of the role she plays in his life.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	strings

_ You don’t know about the Barlow woman. _

It’s true. 

The longer John watches her interact with the captain he’s funneled deeper into the mystery of the role she plays in his life. 

From the way she touches his arms and stares at his lips makes it seem to him that maybe she is his wife, the way they talk and move around one another, maybe his sister. 

She will not talk to anyone but him and the child they ferry back to Carolina. John doesn’t really blame her, knowing what he knows about the crew he’s on. 

He doesn’t need to talk to her however, not to pick apart every look and every faint word that leaves her lips close enough for John to overhear. 

It takes two days for him to realize she isn’t the captain’s wife, or partner, even his friend. 

She holds the strings attached to wrists. 

Every word she says to Captain Flint is made true, no matter how small or how hard he fights, her word is law and Flint does not falter. 

Behind the black flag that strikes fear into the hearts of soldiers and slavers alike lies a woman with a face soft as silk, directing the puppet she holds so dear. 

John watches her carefully and knows that one day, with the right words, he could have that power.

For she spins a careful story. The strings attached to the Captain dancing so delicately that he believes she doesn’t hold them at all. That he can tell her to wait on this ship with the men while he takes Miss Ashe back to shore.

_ Flint does not know the Barlow woman. _

Of course, things happen out of John’s control. 

He’s fucking tired of it. 

He drifts, in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of some phantom pain in his leg, he cannot concentrate enough to think about it. 

He sees blurry shapes of men, his friends. Billy, Doctor Howell, Muldoon, Flint. 

Somehow, somewhere in it all, someone sits next to him. Recounts word for word the story of what happened inside the governor’s house the night before it all went to hell. That he remembers. 

_ The Barlow woman.  _

She screamed at the governor. Told him she wanted to see Charlestown burn, wanted to see him hang, wanted to pull the lever herself. 

She had been murdered. 

Flint had not strayed from her word. 

Charlestown went up in flames and rubble and a horrifying display of power from a man wronged with the Barlow woman sleeping peacefully in the center of it all. 

John can remember that somehow too. His searing pain and nausea and cannonfire and smoke so thick day turned to night as he begged and screamed for mercy from the doctor trying to save his life. 

He wakes once in the middle of the night. 

He does not move or make a sound. 

Around him he hears the sound of the ocean, the groaning of a moving ship, the sound of grief. 

A sound that chills him from the inside out. He knows it’s the Captain somewhere in his head, but he sounds like a child. Desperate and hiccuping and grief so thick and heavy hanging in the air it threatens to drown John where he lay. 

There’s nothing he can do. He cannot move. His eyes refuse to stay open long enough for him to even glimpse at the Captain. 

So John falls back asleep, but behind his closed eyes he sees himself as a child, wandering through his small town with other children and stopping at a puppet show. 

Watching the strings pull and dance so the painted wood of the pretend pirates could sword fight and entertain the children. 

One of the puppets suddenly falls, the strings and the wood of the puppet clatter to the floor and it’s somehow deafening to John. The sound of the marionette losing its puppeteer. 

The sound of a man who has lost everything. 

When he finally wakes he pretends not to know he heard anything at all. 

He pretends not to know anything about the Barlow woman, just like everyone else. 

Their Captain now runs without a narrator to his story. 

He’s already noticeably more impulsive, more frustrated with the little daily annoyances of the men. 

He seems lost. 

Strings dragging through seawater behind him. 

John does what he does best, he waits and watches. Waits to see exactly what sort of guidance the Captain may need, watches for the right moment to work his way in Flint’s head when he’s vulnerable.

Days pass. 

Flint takes a knife to the hair on his head. The crew starts to take notice of the strings that dangle sadly behind their Captain. 

John knows he has to step in soon. He still isn’t quite sure how. 

Billy tells him one day, wholeheartedly, that he knows how to tell a story to the men. 

“It’s rather incredible.”

_ It has the potential to be dangerous. _

John realizes he could try it, carefully. Suggests to the Captain one night under the stars that maybe Rackham obtaining the gold might not be so awful for their crew in the long run. 

Flint pulls against the strings like a dog on a leash. 

John lets go. Takes a step back. 

Decides to try again a week later alone in the captain’s quarters while Flint mourns in his own quiet way. 

He knows the next step could cut every string holding the man together. Knows he has to choose very carefully. 

He limps slowly over to the side of the desk where Flint sits. 

He does not move. 

John places his hand on top of Flints and holds it there for a moment. Holding on to one, thin, fraying thread. 

“Tell me about Mrs. Barlow.” 

Tears begin to fall silently against Flint’s cheeks. 

John ties the first string safely around his own wrist. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I’m trying to make some new friends is it working


End file.
